anxiety and perspective

So tomorrow, attempting to take a small but important step in the direction of dealing with some major negative things that have been going on both in the long and the short term, and have been feeling rather anxious about it all weekend. Also recognize that some of my attitude towards it is not exactly conducive to it being useful/productive, so decided to do a bit of a spread to try to work through that somewhat.

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I. Where I am now/my situation:

A bit of a tricky one, this Sun card. We see it prominently, the bright orange and yellow light, the energy radiating outwards. An opportunity here, momentum, a powerful kind of potential, very bright. And yet it is not a comforting kind of sunlight, but rather so strong as to seem dangerous, overwhelming. The man in the image looks dark, sun-burned perhaps, something snake-like coiled around him. He gives thanks to the sun, and yet seems...both empowered and subjugated by it. You need the sun to survive and to thrive and yet in some circumstances, it can hurt you. This card makes me think of desert-dwellers, which is a perfect example of that phenomenon. It must be handled with care, this sun. I want this opportunity to work out, but I am rather afraid of those dangerous sparks....

II. How to handle hopes and expectations:

The woman here sits under the glow of a lamp; the light allows her to see clearly what she has despite the darkness that otherwise surrounds her. She holds her coins close, responsible for them, owning up to them, caring for them. By becoming sentimentally attached to these things she risks emotional distress if they were to shatter and break, if she were to lose them. And yet sometimes, we have to keep holding nonetheless. I've a tendency sometimes to distance myself from hopes, expectations. I am doing this because I should but of course I don't expect it to go well and so I will not be invested and if it fails it will be easier to bear. That works out well enough sometimes, but in this particular situation... not the best approach. Better to keep in mind, clearly and close at hand, what I hope to gain from this endeavor, and try to be pro-active in making that happen, insofar as I can.

III. How to handle anxiety and fears:

There is a clear contrast between this card and the proceeding one. Here, rather than a single figure in a single small space, we have not just the world but the universe, stars and planets and space. We have looking outwards, the bigger picture. letting go and letting the Universe do as it may. It's funny and a bit difficult to think of how huge the universe is and how tiny we are in comparison, so many huge forces moving through themillenia, and our lives so short in comparison. There are so many things in life we cannot control. The universe gives us strokes of amazing luck, things clicking into place and manifesting wonderfully, and small, unexpected surprises that make our day; and it gives us tragedies, efforts falling apart, unwanted burdens that we must learn to bear. Maybe this effort will be a stroke of luck and maybe another minor disaster. I can control my attitude and approach,  but not much else. Focusing on worst case scenarios prematurely will change nothing either way.

IV. Advice for adjusting my attitude/approach:

The man in this card has clearly lost something. He is soggy and sad, rain-soaked in his defeat, tired. Defeat perhaps, yes, and yet when we look closer, what has he really lost? He still has is sturdy cloak, and not one but five swords there at his disposal. Has he tried them all, seen whether any would suit is purposes? Five swords. I was give five new numbers to call on Friday; this is only the person behind one of them, that I am to meet with. I see in this card a reminder to keep things in perspective. Even if this does turn out to be a defeat, a failure, it is not the only option I have. I defeat would not be a disaster but rather a minor setback. Pick up the phone again, call a different number, try again. I am not destitute of resources entirely. I have been in the rain long enough to deal with it for a while longer, even if it does feel quite cold and icky in the moment. Perspective: do not make this out to be either bigger or smaller than what it really is.

pondering quotes again

“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.”

- Chinese Proverb

"All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take."

- Mahatma Gandhi 

"Have a bias toward action - let's see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away."

- Indira Gandhi

cards-based writing exercise

So I hardly ever do any creative writing anymore - not enough time or energy, with all the other things I have going on, particularly the coursework. However, since that writing workshop on Saturday I've had a story idea stubbornly bouncing around in my head. Somewhat unusually, plot details keep coming to me - not in a short story/flash fiction kind of way, but actual longer work kind of plot. Kind of stressed about other things though, and didn't know how to begin doing something with all of that, so I decided to draw some cards and write around those.

I drew the 2 of Wands, 4 of Wands, and Ace of Cups from the Fantastical Tarot.

A door, an opportunity, a choice between security, the familiar, and emotional fulfillment, a new beginning.

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Two cats: one black, the other a pale ginger-blond. That is what you would remember most of all about that moment, later on - the way those two cats slinked about, curling around the legs of the man you were speaking to, the man you had once known simply as an imposing librarian and who you now could not even look in the eye as you spoke. No, you stared at his cats, each one rubbing against one of his legs, perfectly ironed slacks forming a sort of door. A door, yes, and how very desperate was your need then to get out.

You spoke to his legs and to his cats because you knew that if you were to look up, to meet his pale grey eyes, you would lose your nerve. The words you needed to say would die as they reached your lips and instead he would find what he wanted, from you and from the rest: silence, submission, compliance. And you could not, would not, go back to that.

Even as you began to speak you were already aware of how much you would miss it once you left. The secret society had warmly accepted you into its fold, pried your darkest secrets away from you, saved you from the dreadful feeling of being alone always and in all things. You would miss the lectures about things you had not dared to dream since childhood were real, the glasses of wine shared afterwards with quiet discussion. Most of all you would miss the weekends, driving down, squeezed in the back of a van, to the little airfield outside the city, taking turns flying up in the plane, higher and higher, and of course the jump back down to earth again, the freezing thin air rushing at you from all directions, and the voices.

The voices, which had been so thin at first, pressed together, hurried and blurred so that you simply thought you were losing your mind again. Then later, as you returned week after week they stretched out into clarity, filled you with the most amazing kind of magic - the things you could do with that magic, those first few moments and hours after the parachute carried you back down to the ground. Euphoria  filled every inch of you once a week for months, until one of those voices became a name, a singularity you could distinguish from all the rest. It said: what do you think they are doing with all of the magic they take from us? Why do you think he collects it from you, in tithe? Look, snoop, discover.

You did. You discovered, and you retched, and a little later on you were standing in front of him, Elias, ostensible leader of all things. You stared at his cats and you made excuses, lied about feeling unwell again and needing time to yourself, away from all of these things. You were still too scared then, too tied to them, to say what you really meant: that you were done, that you were walking away.

No, not just walking away - you would find a way to fight against what they were doing; you would go on a mad search for the withered, bitter old man that a certain voice told you, as you were plunging down through the clouds, held the key to that fight: a magic from higher skies, the starry skies that once, for a short moment in time, men thought they could thrust themselves into.

You would go looking for space magic.

Weekend Follow-Up

Haven't been around here last few days, mostly because I spent my weekend having a really, really nice time at a local science-fiction and fantasy book convention with a couple of friends. I enjoyed myself more than I have in a while, and thus thought it might be useful to do a bit of a reflective reading, along the lines of:

What should I take away from my weekend experience/what should I carry forward into the week ahead.

Interesting pair of cards as an answer, here. What draws my attention particularly is the kind of dual-ended inverse nature of these images. The Magician seems less upright than usually depicted, more floating and dreaming, his tools orbiting him but not quite in his grip. The moon card in contrast, seems full of a kind of self-confident calm, more empowered than disturbed. There is a very starry, spacey theme throughout, which oddly enough is rather appropriate in certain ways.

In the Magician, perhaps, the message of taking control of what you can without that kind of need to try to control EVERYTHING; self-confidence but also a willingness to go with the flow of things, to be flexible. To take and work with what you have in front of you at any given time, but also not to be afraid to initiate, to make things you want in your life happen...I was actually a bit surprised with how comfortable socially I felt most of the weekend. It also served as a reminder of how fun it is to spend time with people who share you interest in certain activities. I've already made it a point in the last year to attend the local monthly tarot group when I can, but thinking I might try to find some local meetups for gaming (not video games, old school card and board games), perhaps some kind of book club.

The moon, on the other hand, seems a reminder of the positive aspects of connecting with creative, intuitive, dream side of myself. I have kept up with tarot work and this blog, but in terms of other creative endeavors, not much has been happening recently. I went to a writing workshop during the convention, and it reminded me of how much I used to...enjoy creative writing. I got an idea for a story that has to do with space magic and air magic, a secret society of skydivers and a search for aging former cosmonauts who may be the key to solving a crisis that is slowly unfolding... perhaps, rather than letting that idea slowly fade from my mind as I focus again on schoolwork and day to day tasks I should take the initiative of making the time to actually...write it, do something with it...

Initiative, Intuitive Creativity, Flexible confidence. Themes of the week.